A fall caused by a slippery floor surface may provide a humorous sequence in a motion picture or television comedy, but in the real world it has been known to cause serious injury and even death. One of the most common areas where dangerous slippery floor surfaces are present is in commercial kitchens where grease, oil, water and the like commonly spill on the floor. The problem often times is compounded by the fact that personnel working in these areas typically carry containers of hot substances which can provide a secondary source of injury during the fall by being contacted and burned by the hot substance.
Various devices have been employed in the past to reduce or eliminate the slipperiness, but many have generally been only temporarily effective, if effective at all. Other devices have been extremely expensive and have caused additional problems for kitchen personnel. Wood duckboards have been commonly used but are not particularly desirable inasmuch as they are unduly thick and therefore impede the movement of kitchen carts commonly used by kitchen personnel. Additionally, the wood rapidly absorbs the grease and oil and the grease or oil soaked surface of the duckboard itself becomes a hazardous surface. It is also very difficult to remove the grease or oil from a duckboard, once it has been utilized for an extended period of time. Thin non-slip surface covering materials such as that sold by the assignee under the trade designation "Safety Walk" have also been utilized. While this material has met with great commercial success and provides a desirable non-slip surface and it is sufficiently thin to permit the passage of kitchen carts, it requires adhesion to the floor surface to prevent slipping and curling under pedestrian and cart traffic. It is virtually impossible to obtain good long term adhesion between such thin non-slip surface coverings on floor surfaces which have already been exposed to grease and oil due to the penetration of these materials into the floor. Additionally, even after adhesion to a new floor surface, the adhesive generally releases because of penetration of oil, grease and/or other liquids between the adhesive and the floor or by actual penetration into the adhesive layer, if it is susceptible to failure in the presence of the penetrant. Thin non-slip materials of this type are disclosed in U.S. Pat. Nos. 3,578,550 (Hoerner et al), 3,895,153 (Johnston et al) and 3,227,604 (Morgan).
Other non-slip devices have included mats formed of a solid layer of rubber, rubber mats having a molded textured surface, mats made of segments of automobile tires fastened together in a link arrangement to provide openness, vinyl mats having an embossed grid-like top surface, vinyl slat mats with abrasive grit on the upper surface of the slat, and the like. Hargreaves (U.S. Pat. No. 2,975,089) discloses a resilient non-slip mat having deep parallel grooves in its upper surface and being formed of a mixture of rubber and granulated cork.
Naka (U.S. Pat. No. 4,060,947) discloses a non-skid strip having an embossed undulated upper surface. Brunner (U.S. Pat. No. 3,016,317) discloses a resilient gymnastic mat having a grooved sheet of cellular material on its top surface.